The other day, I was looking for a local news article about a high school football game, but couldn't find the game details I was looking for - all I could find was the score. Our local newspaper doesn't offer online article viewing unless you're a subscriber. After searching several other local news sites online and having no luck with their archives, I found a site called Topix.net which has indexed a vast amount of news stories from all over the web.
Topix.net allows you to search news relevant to your area by entering the topic, city, state or postal code. The site pointed me directly to the article I was looking for and may help you as well. There's also a local forum for discussion and comments about news articles and you can list a free classified ad there, too!
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Truckload of Plasmas for $9999
WHAT? 50 Plasma TV's for under $10 grand? There has to be a catch. The deal is that there's a semi truck loaded with over 50 TV's that were damaged during shipment with the insurance claim on most of them being "broken screens". Now, I don't have a clue how much someone could salvage from all those broken TV's, but I do know that a Pioneer 50" Plasma costs around $2,000 and there are 10 of them (including a 60") and a Panasonic 42" Plasma retails for about $1500 and up and there are 29 of these on the truck ranging from 42" to 58" models. Wow - if only 5 or 6 of these 50+ TV's worked and just had minor cosmetic damage, you could recoup the cost. What's more is that the seller has 100% positive feedback rating which is outstanding for a wholesale distributor - or, anyone else for that matter. Can anyone out there loan me 10 grand?
Monday, January 29, 2007
What's a Podcast, You Ask?
A podcast is a media file that is distributed by subscription (paid or unpaid) over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of syndication. The latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. The term "podcast" is derived from Apple's portable music player, the iPod. However, known synonyms for the word pod are capsule, case, container, hull, husk, shell, and vessel. A pod is obviously a container of some sort and the idea of broadcasting to a container or pod correctly the describes the process of podcasting. More about the name itself can be found in the History of podcasting article.
Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically, using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.
Source: wikipedia.org
Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically, using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.
Source: wikipedia.org
Friday, January 19, 2007
Spammers Beware!
I hate spam, who doesn't? I'll tell you who doesn't hate spam - the scumbag spammers who try to gain your personal information for profit, that's who. I'm so glad to see that some action is beginning to form to deter criminals from using the Internet to trick people into scams. The first person in the US has been convicted under the anti-spam law, called the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act and he faces a sentence of up to 101 years in federal prison. Here's the press release detailing the spammer's conviction.
LA-area man first in nation convicted under anti-spam law
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - A man faces a sentence of up to 101 years in federal prison after being the first person in the U.S. convicted under a federal anti-spam law, authorities said.
Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, of Azusa, was found guilty Friday of running a "phishing" scheme that tricked people into believing they were giving personal information to a legitimate business. Prosecutors said Goodin then used the information to go on a spending spree.
Goodin is the first person in the nation convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, the U.S. attorney's office said. The law forbids e-mail marketers from sending false or misleading messages and requires them to provide recipients with a way to opt out of receiving future mailings.
During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Goodin used several compromised Internet accounts to send e-mails to America Online users. The e-mails appeared to be from the company's billing department and told customers to update their billing information or lose service.
The e-mails referred people to one of several Web pages controlled by Goodin where they could enter their personal information, prosecutors said.
In addition to the anti-spam conviction, Goodin was convicted of 10 other counts, including wire fraud, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment.
Goodin is scheduled to be sentenced June 11.
LA-area man first in nation convicted under anti-spam law
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - A man faces a sentence of up to 101 years in federal prison after being the first person in the U.S. convicted under a federal anti-spam law, authorities said.
Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, of Azusa, was found guilty Friday of running a "phishing" scheme that tricked people into believing they were giving personal information to a legitimate business. Prosecutors said Goodin then used the information to go on a spending spree.
Goodin is the first person in the nation convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, the U.S. attorney's office said. The law forbids e-mail marketers from sending false or misleading messages and requires them to provide recipients with a way to opt out of receiving future mailings.
During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Goodin used several compromised Internet accounts to send e-mails to America Online users. The e-mails appeared to be from the company's billing department and told customers to update their billing information or lose service.
The e-mails referred people to one of several Web pages controlled by Goodin where they could enter their personal information, prosecutors said.
In addition to the anti-spam conviction, Goodin was convicted of 10 other counts, including wire fraud, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment.
Goodin is scheduled to be sentenced June 11.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Dugg Anything Lately?
Digg.com is a very cool website where surfers submit news from the far reaches of the 'net. You can check out all the latest interesting stories arranged by the number of diggs and you can even submit news from wesites and blogs you find interesting or newsworthy or even cool so that others can digg it, too. There's also a blog feature which allows the user to blog the stories as well. If you have been under a rock, you need to digg yourself out!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Netflix Offers Movies on Your PC
Today, Netflix announced that it's getting into the download game. Although the service won't be available to all Netflix subscribers immediately, the company should have everyone online to enjoy movies on their PC by June 2007. Check out the press release, here.
I recently placed my Netflix subscription on hold since my son started working at the local video rental store - he can get all the movies I want after they've been out for 2 weeks, so I just decided to save a few bucks. I might have to try this out, especially if you can get TV shows as well - I never have enough recorders!
I recently placed my Netflix subscription on hold since my son started working at the local video rental store - he can get all the movies I want after they've been out for 2 weeks, so I just decided to save a few bucks. I might have to try this out, especially if you can get TV shows as well - I never have enough recorders!
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Text Messaging: Teens vs. Adults
If my teenage daughter is any indication of the results of this poll,
I already know the answer to this one without even reading the story or viewing the results of the poll. It didn't take me long to figure out that the best way to go with a teen who has a cell phone is to go ahead and add the unlimited text messaging to their phone even if it's $10 or $15 per month - believe me, you'll come out ahead in the long run. Or, you could have text messaging capability removed all together from the phone; I have a friend who had to do this since his son had the unlimited in-network plus an additional 1000 out-of-network text messaging plan, and still went over, way over...
Anyway, here's the poll...
Associated Press
Poll: Nearly half of teens use instant messaging, fyi
WASHINGTON -- Almost half of teens, 48 percent of those ages 13-18, use instant messaging, according to an AP-AOL poll. That's more than twice the percentage of adults who use it.
According to the poll:
Almost three-fourths of adults who do use instant messages still communicate with e-mail more often. Almost three-fourths of teens send instant messages more than e-mail. More than half of the teens who use instant messages send more than 25 a day, and 1 in 5 send more than 100. Three-fourths of adult users send fewer than 25 IMs a day. Teen users (30 percent) are almost twice as likely as adults (17 percent) to say they can't imagine life without instant messaging. When keeping up with a friend who is far away, teens are most likely to use instant messaging, while adults turn first to e-mail. About a fifth of teen IM users have used IM to ask for or accept a date. Almost as many, 16 percent, have used it to break up with someone.
A bow to the traditional: When sharing serious or confidential news, both teens and adults prefer to use the telephone, the poll said. The survey of 1,013 adults and 500 teens was conducted online by Knowledge Networks from Nov. 30-Dec. 4. The margin of sampling error for the adults was plus or minus 4 percentage points, 5.5 points for teens.
I already know the answer to this one without even reading the story or viewing the results of the poll. It didn't take me long to figure out that the best way to go with a teen who has a cell phone is to go ahead and add the unlimited text messaging to their phone even if it's $10 or $15 per month - believe me, you'll come out ahead in the long run. Or, you could have text messaging capability removed all together from the phone; I have a friend who had to do this since his son had the unlimited in-network plus an additional 1000 out-of-network text messaging plan, and still went over, way over...
Anyway, here's the poll...
Associated Press
Poll: Nearly half of teens use instant messaging, fyi
WASHINGTON -- Almost half of teens, 48 percent of those ages 13-18, use instant messaging, according to an AP-AOL poll. That's more than twice the percentage of adults who use it.
According to the poll:
Almost three-fourths of adults who do use instant messages still communicate with e-mail more often. Almost three-fourths of teens send instant messages more than e-mail. More than half of the teens who use instant messages send more than 25 a day, and 1 in 5 send more than 100. Three-fourths of adult users send fewer than 25 IMs a day. Teen users (30 percent) are almost twice as likely as adults (17 percent) to say they can't imagine life without instant messaging. When keeping up with a friend who is far away, teens are most likely to use instant messaging, while adults turn first to e-mail. About a fifth of teen IM users have used IM to ask for or accept a date. Almost as many, 16 percent, have used it to break up with someone.
A bow to the traditional: When sharing serious or confidential news, both teens and adults prefer to use the telephone, the poll said. The survey of 1,013 adults and 500 teens was conducted online by Knowledge Networks from Nov. 30-Dec. 4. The margin of sampling error for the adults was plus or minus 4 percentage points, 5.5 points for teens.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Cleaning Up MySpace
Yesterday, MySpace announced that it will purge anyone listed in the national database of sex offenders from the social network.
From the press release:
"We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace," said MySpace's Chief Security Officer, Hemanshu Nigam. "Sentinel Safe will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community. The creation of this first-of-its-kind real-time searchable database technology is a significant step to keep our members as safe as possible."
The whole first-of-its-kind, never-been-done-before, thank-God-the-technology-finally-exists thread runs throughout the press release. The language seems calculated to let MySpace escape responsibility for failing to police the sex offenders on its site prior to October, despite the availability of a free online registry demonstrably useful for exactly that purpose.
That said, Sentinel's database promises to be far more powerful than the DOJ registry I used. As described, it'll contain detailed information, including height, weight, eye and hair color, and the complete offense history of each offender -- all completely searchable. It'll be like a Google for sex offenders.
That leaves just one real disappointment in this announcement: How MySpace plans to use the data. With all that information at its disposal, and a "24-hour-a-day dedicated staff" using it, MySpace could seriously enhance its policing. Instead, the company is taking a sophisticated database and wielding it as a blunt instrument, simply banning everyone on the list from registering or keeping a MySpace account, regardless of who they are or what they did.
This is bad because, obviously, banning sex offenders won't keep them off MySpace: it'll just give them a reason to lie about their name or location, even if they aren't up to no good. (My survey found hundreds of past offenders, many with old or minor convictions, whose profiles reflected a seemingly normal life.) Now sex offenders who want to stay on MySpace will all be using false information from the start.
MySpace is essentially refusing an opportunity to detect and imprison active repeat offenders, by moving the entire superset of ex-offenders into the shadows. Does the convicted pedophile have lots of teenagers on his friendslist? MySpace won't know, because he'll be under same veil of anonymity as the flashers and peeping toms.
We know there are some ex-sex offenders who attempt to recidivate from accounts opened under their real names. If you believe they will now stay off MySpace, then the company's policy is good for safety. But if you think they'll simply start spelling their name a little different or lying about their ZIP code, then MySpace has lost the chance to take them off the streets.
MySpace is taking the easy way out. It may be good PR to be able to say that you don't allow past sex offenders of any stripe on your website, but the company should keep its eye on the ball: the goal isn't to keep a former flasher from blogging about his cat, it's to keep current pedophiles from pursuing children. MySpace could tell the difference, if it wanted to. A smart policing effort would use the sex offender database as one of many data points in keeping the site safe. Sometimes zero-tolerance is really tolerance.
From the press release:
"We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace," said MySpace's Chief Security Officer, Hemanshu Nigam. "Sentinel Safe will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community. The creation of this first-of-its-kind real-time searchable database technology is a significant step to keep our members as safe as possible."
The whole first-of-its-kind, never-been-done-before, thank-God-the-technology-finally-exists thread runs throughout the press release. The language seems calculated to let MySpace escape responsibility for failing to police the sex offenders on its site prior to October, despite the availability of a free online registry demonstrably useful for exactly that purpose.
That said, Sentinel's database promises to be far more powerful than the DOJ registry I used. As described, it'll contain detailed information, including height, weight, eye and hair color, and the complete offense history of each offender -- all completely searchable. It'll be like a Google for sex offenders.
That leaves just one real disappointment in this announcement: How MySpace plans to use the data. With all that information at its disposal, and a "24-hour-a-day dedicated staff" using it, MySpace could seriously enhance its policing. Instead, the company is taking a sophisticated database and wielding it as a blunt instrument, simply banning everyone on the list from registering or keeping a MySpace account, regardless of who they are or what they did.
This is bad because, obviously, banning sex offenders won't keep them off MySpace: it'll just give them a reason to lie about their name or location, even if they aren't up to no good. (My survey found hundreds of past offenders, many with old or minor convictions, whose profiles reflected a seemingly normal life.) Now sex offenders who want to stay on MySpace will all be using false information from the start.
MySpace is essentially refusing an opportunity to detect and imprison active repeat offenders, by moving the entire superset of ex-offenders into the shadows. Does the convicted pedophile have lots of teenagers on his friendslist? MySpace won't know, because he'll be under same veil of anonymity as the flashers and peeping toms.
We know there are some ex-sex offenders who attempt to recidivate from accounts opened under their real names. If you believe they will now stay off MySpace, then the company's policy is good for safety. But if you think they'll simply start spelling their name a little different or lying about their ZIP code, then MySpace has lost the chance to take them off the streets.
MySpace is taking the easy way out. It may be good PR to be able to say that you don't allow past sex offenders of any stripe on your website, but the company should keep its eye on the ball: the goal isn't to keep a former flasher from blogging about his cat, it's to keep current pedophiles from pursuing children. MySpace could tell the difference, if it wanted to. A smart policing effort would use the sex offender database as one of many data points in keeping the site safe. Sometimes zero-tolerance is really tolerance.
Other Blogs
I have some other blogs that I'm working on for some of my other interests, and to hopefully spark my husbands interest in computers and the Internet, we are going to collaborate on one as well.
Here are the links...
My Blog at Livejournal is a place for me to rant, rave and remember...
My Photo Blog is where I post some shots that I've taken...
Our blog which will be Jimmy's, I'd rather be fishing...
Here are the links...
My Blog at Livejournal is a place for me to rant, rave and remember...
My Photo Blog is where I post some shots that I've taken...
Our blog which will be Jimmy's, I'd rather be fishing...
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